Road Trip For Water

Next week, a bus will depart from our communities to stand in solidarity with the people of the Darling. Volunteers, farmers, environmentalists, mums and dads, all united in a cause. 

We are heading down a road of no return. It will have very real, measurable, and tangible implications for our community and all souls who call Australia home.

We need the ability to provide healthy, sustainable food and the best possible outcomes for environment, both public and private, for our future generations.

The next six months will cement these outcomes, unless things change. 

Floodplain Harvesting

Currently in NSW, Nationals member Melinda Pavey, (Member for Oxley on the North Coast, and the NSW Water Minister) is attempting for a third time to push through floodplain harvesting legislation. 

Currently, estimates of take in Northern NSW and Southern QLD are six-times over the 1993/94 cap and 15-times over the basin plan extraction limit.

Unlike our rivers, the Darling [River] and her people do not get water first. Unlicenced and unmetered flood plain harvesting appear to hold the power.

Despite the rampant expansion of FPH infrastructure and existing requirements to be metered and licenced – nothing has happened. The Darling and her people have been forsaken by the NSW Government.

If NSW gifts these licences, that currently do not exist, it will represent a multi-billion-dollar windfall to Northern NSW irrigators.

Menindee

The Menindee system is a large environmentally significant icon of NSW, the current plan is to shut off huge percentages of the lakes, killing ecosystems, culture, and communities. 

Evaporation is a poor excuse for the destruction, when considering an estuary (South Australian Lower Lakes), masquerading as freshwater lakes. A lake held high under dubious pretences, higher water levels, creates a larger lake, larger surface area, ergo greater evaporation. 

Confirmed this week, water for regattas- ‘A number of boating regattas are carried out in summer months in the Lower Lakes. Maintenance of the lakes +0.35 mAHD is also required to facilitate navigation which would be achieved by the maintenance of the minimum target water levels.’

Why is the Menindee environment less important than the SA environment?

The Barmah Choke

The Darling historically provided from 40-50% of NSW contribution to provide South Australia’s water. If the Darling does not flow, SA doesn’t miss out – we do. Both the NSW Murray and Victoria wear the cost. They pull more water out of our storages and force it down our rivers, or drains, as they are now being treated. 

The choke is a natural constraint, formed thousands of years ago, when the Murray chose a different path across the land. 

For the last 100 years we have worked in, for the most part, harmony with the constraints. Not now, not with ‘The Plan to Save The Murray.’

This week the Murray Darling Basin Authority claimed that the Barmah Choke’s capacity is a result of ‘coarse sand from historical gold mines.’

Three million tonnes of sand, or an estimated 2,300,000 cubic metres, have allegedly made their way to block the choke. 

Nothing to do with the largest water reform and geographical redistribution of water in history?

The release of this report raises the question: How long before the government announces an engineering solution to bypass the choke?

The current 20,000 megalitres-a-day flow will be ramped up to an estimated 50,000 megalitres-a-day.

What do our rivers look like with the current flow regime? What would 50,000 megalitres a day look like? 

The delusion over the true nature of the plan continues... We require a healthy basin for ALL Australians.